Tucked at the bottom of a blurb from Jeremy Fowler of ESPN regarding the Maxx Crosby trade is a very interesting quote from an unnamed person who was “involved” in the deal.
The Raiders weren’t going to trade Crosby to the Patriots because, as the unnamed source put it, “No way Tom [Brady] was sending Maxx to [Mike] Vrabel.”
The observation, if true, highlights two points. First, Brady has enough power with the Raiders to strike potential Crosby trade destinations from the list. Second, Brady doesn’t want to do anything to help the team with which he won six Super Bowls.
The Ravens were one of the Patriots’ biggest rivals during Brady’s time in New England. As legend has it, the Ravens instigated #Deflategate by telling the Colts about Brady’s use of underinflated footballs. So Brady is willing to trade Crosby to the Ravens and not to the Patriots?
Either way, Crosby is still in the conference. Both the Ravens and the Patriots will be competing, in theory, with the Raiders for playoff seeding (if/when the Raiders ever become postseason contenders). And Brady supposedly had no qualms about sending Crosby to Baltimore but refused to send him to New England.
It’s hard to imagine Brady having the ability to block the trade, if the Patriots had offered more than any other team. But the quote from the unnamed source to Fowler was unequivocal: There’s “no way” Brady would have sent Crosby to Vrabel and the Patriots.
The broader dynamic is something to monitor. Will the Raiders do business with the Patriots? And if they won’t, what’s Brady’s real issue? Vrabel is his friend and former teammate. There’s no Belichickian animosity between the Patriots and Brady. The Patriots built a Tom Brady statue outside Gillette Stadium.
It could be as simple as Brady not wanting the Patriots to become what they were when he was there. (Remember when he said he had “no dog in the fight” as the Patriots were preparing to face the Seahawks in the Super Bowl?) If/when a new New England dynasty emerges, the Brady era becomes less significant to Patriots fans. The Brady jerseys slip deeper into the closet. Fewer photos get taken in front of the Brady statue.
The whole thing still seems like a bit of a reach. But someone involved in the Crosby trade believes it. That makes it interesting, unless and until more evidence emerges to push the needle one way or the other.